Millennium Films wins copyright suit over “Lovelace”

If Linda Boreman were alive today, she would likely be pleased that producers of the upcoming film depicting her tumultuous life as porn star Linda Lovelace just won a big victory against the producers of “Deep Throat,” the 1972 porn film she later regretted starring in.

Arrow Productions, which produced “Deep Throat,” filed suit against The Weinstein Co. and Millennium Films, makers of the upcoming “Lovelace.” The suit claimed that the new film, which profiles Boreman’s rise and fall in the porn industry, unlawfully uses more than five minutes of footage from “Deep Throat,” in violation of Arrow’s copyright.

“Defendants use that footage without license or permission. In fact, the title Lovelace derives its market appeal entirely from decades of cultural cache embodied in the trademarked name Linda Lovelace,” Arrow wrote in its complaint. “Rather than negotiating licenses for Deep Throat IP, rather than deferring to Arrow’s vision for the Deep Throat brand, defendants have simply taken what they wanted and crossed their fingers.”

But yesterday, a judge cleared the way for “Lovelace” to be released on Friday as previously scheduled.

“We are relieved that common sense prevailed,” Millennium Films President Mark Gill said in a statement. “The suit was completely unwarranted. We believe this case was an insult to the legal safeguards in place maintaining our right to freedom of speech. It was without merit on every level. Arrow Productions’ complaint was transparent about its desire to control discussion about Deep Throat — a film they describe as a ‘watershed’ in American popular culture—and to hinder projects that would compete with theirs. The law does not support either of these motives.”